


Adventures In Babysitting

by BlackQat, LadyFangs



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 19:04:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13060233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackQat/pseuds/BlackQat, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyFangs/pseuds/LadyFangs
Summary: Sylvia Tilly explains it all for a newcomer aboard Discovery.





	Adventures In Babysitting

**Author's Note:**

> Read Lady Fangs' "Human Nature" to the end first!

ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING - Tilly

“So I have laryngotracheal stenosis,” Tilly says to the small infant in her arms. “Do you know what that means? Of course you don’t, but I just want to explain that if I doze off with you, I might snore. And I snore loud. Like Kh-chh-chhh-k-k-khh.” The baby blinks and stares, raising his fine eyebrows and opening his mouth. Could be a yawn, could be amazement. Tilly doesn’t know but she grins.

“What a beautiful baby you are! You have two very good-looking parents, so of course you’re beautiful.” Perfect round face, tiny nose, and pretty hazel eyes. Skin the color of lightest latte. (Why do I always use food colors to describe skin tones of people of color? she wonders, annoyed with herself. But, lattes are among her very favorite things, and Uriel is fast becoming one.) “And what tiny hands!” She extends her finger and Uriel’s fingers curl around it. “Nice to meet you! My name is Sylvia, but everybody calls me Tilly, because that’s my last name and we use last names here mostly. So my family is big and I learned to talk fast to get my words in edgewise. That expression doesn’t make much sense, does it.” Shrug. Baby gaze.  One little hand reaches up and tugs on a curl of Tilly’s red hair.

“Mmm, ow!” She disengages the curl and gives him her pinky to hold. “You seem like a perfect listener, Uriel. You’re named for an angel, and I can’t think of anything more perfect for you than that.” She strokes his cheek, ever so gently, with the pad of her finger. “Oh my gosh you are so-o soft. I wish my skin was like yours. I still break out. Get zits. Ugh.” She points. “See?” Uriel’s eyes follow the motion of her finger, but he can’t really focus yet. “Once you can focus your eyes you’ll start giving everybody that wiser-than-thou look. I loved that when my baby brothers were born! Oh my gosh you are so cute. I just want to squeeze you close, but you might not like that. How ‘bout I snuggle you right here?”

She sits in an easy chair and cradles Uriel on her chest. “A nice soft place for you. Perfect for telling you a sleepy story.” Uriel’s tiny arm rises so he can plant a pinky finger in his rosebud mouth, and there’s a bit of drool dampening her shirt, but Tilly doesn’t mind. “This is just like when our cats used to be contented and they’d knead on me and sometimes droplets of saliva would come out of their mouths. You know why they do that? You don’t so I’ll tell you. It’s just like you right now, your mouth is relaxed so that drool escapes. At least you’re not kneading and you don’t have claws. Though mommy will need to see to those tiny fingernails of yours because they grow and get edgy and you might scratch mommy by mistake, and we wouldn’t want that, would we?”

“ So – a story. Hmmm. Once upon a time a handsome king and a beautiful princess who had only met briefly at a dance --a ball, they called it in those days, long long ago – met again, on a ship with many passengers. And this ship was a ship for people to have fun and relax—“ (unlike this one, Tilly thought) “—and dance, and drink, and get acquainted. That means getting to know each other, making conversation, finding out about each other, learning what things you might have in common.” Uriel’s gaze was now above her shoulder, and Tilly thinks maybe someone is there, but nope.  (Maybe it’s like when the cats would suddenly look up and gaze at a corner of the room. Maybe Uriel hears mice, haha.) “I guess babies get to look off into the distance too. It’s okay when you do it, but I hate it when grown people do it because it means I’m talking too much. And I do, I do talk too much, and I hope you don’t mind. I won’t talk to you about theoretical engineering though, ‘kay, because you’re definitely too young to understand that.”

A sudden flick of Uriel’s eyes to hers. They don’t have focus yet, but still look rather penetrating, and Tilly smiles. “Ohhh, I can’t wait till you lay one of those on Captain Lorca. He’s your daddy. You’re the only guy on this ship he smiles at. And you will look wiser than he does, and that will totally trip him out!”

“Well, back to our story. So one day this ship goes aground and their radio is dead and the king and the princess, being capable sorts, decide they will volunteer to find help. So off they go in a life raft and begin talking and getting acquainted, as you do, and they find out they both love music and he likes jazz and she likes, umm, classical, because one of her ancestors was a ballerina, so a love of such dance music was passed down through the family.  And the ballet dancer had won the heart of a wonderful prince and so this princess was one of their descendants.  And she was from the land of Hott and he was from the land of Kewl, and the two countries had fought a war in the long-distance past, but built a diplomatic relationship, so there was a warming of relations between the two countries, ha-ha, pun, sorry.

“So the king of Kewl, who is mourning his wife, who died, is thinking this princess is beautiful and brave and smart, and she’s thinking the same thing about him, except instead of beautiful she thinks handsome, because that’s what we say about men for some reason, that they’re handsome not beautiful. So one day you’ll be a very handsome man, but right now you are a pretty pretty baby boy and I just want to eat you up, you’re so sweet. But don’t worry, we just say that, it’s a silly expression, and we just mean you are so special we wish we could have some of that special beautifulness that babies have, because you are new here and soft and … oh, pewww. I think I know what THAT is.” She slides forward in the chair and gingerly balances Uriel as she uses her strong legs to rise smoothly. (Big legs, they used to say at the Academy. Not to mention Silly Tilly. You know, I might be roundish and goofy but damn I’m smart, so screw y’all. Oh I hope I didn’t say that out loud.) “Okay, where did mommy say the diapers are … hmmm ….”

“Okay, here ya go—“ she lays him gently down, on his back, and gets a fresh diaper ready, and takes off the used one, that is full of, ugghhh, smeary yellow-brown. (That’d be a good name for it, “Yellabrown.” Blugh. It doesn’t smell really terrible, because Uriel’s getting  breast milk, finestkind for newborns.) Tilly hopes Michael can keep Uriel with her for a year, though it’s only likely to be six months. Dammit, that’s not fair to mother or baby.

“Not fair,” she murmurs. “Uriel deserves better, don’t you? Oh what the hell??” A tiny upward stream from Uriel’s tiny baby peen, and her forearms are wet, and so is her hand that went to prevent the stream from hitting her in the face… “Criminy, Uriel, you couldn’t do it _before_ I got your diaper off? Dude, that’s cold. Haha no, it’s warm, but … nevermind … wipes, wipes, where ...? Okay, whew, we each need at least a couple of these. Sure glad I’m not wearing my uniform.” No, she’s wearing her DISCO t-shirt. [Undampened, thanks be.]

Some wag … Ash? … had suggested they print “VERY” on the back, so it’d be DISCOVERY if someone walked around you from front to back, but VERY DISCO if they  walked from your back to your front. “yep, we got Disco music on the RecDec, little guy, so if you ever want to ‘Do the Hustle’ you can learn.” (Well maybe not, since he’ll be off the ship in a few months. It’d be so cool if he could stay, but he can’t stay here in a time of war. What’s the rule if we’re captured or something? Transport him and Burnham out? But how? I’ll have to ask!)

She’s whipped out the dirty diaper and with her hands holding his feet up a bit so she can get to the butt (a bit for a butt) and busily wipes Uriel’s bottom, glooping off the worst of the poop into the middle of the first wipe, tossing that aside [carefully] and grabbing another and getting the side bits. Side swipes with a wipe, yeah, and another fresh wipe for the you-reen “all over your lil’ tummy, guy, my gosh, it’s like that awful fake book title my brothers used to pun around with, ‘The Golden Yellow Stream,’ by I. P. Freely. Or ‘The Story of Poop,’ by Will E. Makitt and S. E. Didd. Maybe I’ll nickname you I.P. and no one will guess why.

“How about you, are you gonna grow up to be a writer? I wonder. You’d have a hella story to tell, sweetie. Way better than ‘The Golden Yellow Stream,’ for sure.” She grabbed another wipe and cleaned her arms and hands. “Conceived in Eden, wow, how many of us could lay claim to that, eh? Not me, that’s for sure. My mom had a really bad time with me, the birth was difficult and then she had post-partum depression and they finally figured that out and then she got an inoperable disease and then died a few years after I was born, and my dad had a tough time with me and all my brothers. They were some hellions, let me tell ya. One time my brother John pushed Mark out of a tree, yes, out. of. a. tree. And Mark broke his arm. Thank goodness I was old enough to use a comm. to call emergency services. Boy did he holler. Screamed like a banshee. [That’s an ancient Irish ghostie kinda screeching spirit. Creepy huh?] Poor Mark never got over it, but well, he kind of did, because he got big and strong because he wanted to go to Starfleet Academy, but he didn’t quite make it. I was the brains of the family! Ha, take that, pesky older brothers, beat ya to it. Can’t say he got over _that_.

“Okay, gotta pull up your little feet and raise your butt again so I can get a clean diaper in there, whew.” She fastens it and lofts him up to her shoulder. “No more stinkbutt. You’re too cute to have a stinkbutt, man.

“Let’s go look at the stars and I’ll tell you some more. Stars, see? Oh you can’t see out there yet. To you they’re probably just blobs of light. But they’re burning suns, like the one that lights Earth. Home to the original Eden, if you believe in the Bible. But Eve, the source of Original Sin? Oh please.

“Okay, we’ll sit back in the chair. Ooh, it’s still warm, nice. So the king and the princess … where was I before you so rudely interrupted?” She beams at him, and Uriel smiles (could be a response, could be gas) a sweet, toothless open-mouthed smile. “Boy I sure would like one of you someday. When I get a dirtside gig, maybe. I like flying around in space though.

“So beautiful, handsome, brave and smart are qualities we definitely want in our friends and …romances… and we need _kind_ , too, because kindness is the lubricant that allows society to exist. (Have you met Saru yet, he’s very kind and smart; brave, not so much. But I’d say Dr Culber is all three, and Lieutenant Stamets is all three too, when he’s not being the Smartest Crankiest Scientist in the Room. He’s kinda fun when he gets off the right kind of spore drive trip. He said once he sees the interconnectedness of all things. What we used to call the interdependent web of all existence in the youth school I went to.) Okay so they recognize these qualities in each other, and once they’ve told the rescue ship where to find the other ship, they decide they’re going to go off all by themselves and they find a beautiful island, with all the fruits and vegetables you could ever want, and gentle honeybees and pretty flowers and ferns everywhere and lovely fresh water, and animals to pet and nuts to eat for protein, and basically it’s a perfect place, warm, but not too, and they build a little house from the wood of the trees and make a roof from the leaves of the trees woven in with slender branches from the trees, and it’s enough to shelter them for when it rains and cools off in the nighttime.”

Her voice silents itself. She’s told Uriel a sweet fantasy of his conception.

“I hope nobody heard that. Except you, of course.”

With her feet stroking strongly against the floor as she cradles Uriel, she gradually moves the chair around to face out the viewport.

“Mmmm, this is nice,” she murmurs, and looking down, she realizes he’s asleep.  Tiny lashes curving against impossibly soft cheeks, a wee bubble of saliva from the corner of his mouth, Uriel slumbers.

And so, soon after, does Tilly.


End file.
